The most important choice you make every day

Published 2:00 pm Thursday, June 13, 2019

“..I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life..” – Deuteronomy 31:19

This quote is actually about the most important decision of your life (salvation), but it also applies to the most important choice you and I make each and every day.

The choice you make determines the outcomes of your life – your level of success, your happiness and your peace.

There is only one right choice and a multitude of wrong ones. The right choice is gratitude.

The wrong choices include envy, greed, anger, offense, self-pity and a host of other unhealthy emotions.

Choosing gratitude is choosing life. It is choosing a life of abundance rather than lack.

And we get to choose this life-giving mindset every moment of every day.

Are we thankful to be alive when the alarm clock goes off or dreading what the day will bring?

Are we sick of our bosses and tired of our “dead end” jobs or excited that we can work and create value?

Are we overwhelmed by our responsibilities or thankful that people trust us to create value for them? (That one is a biggie for me!)

The great thing about choosing gratitude is that every time you do it, it becomes easier. Choosing gratitude is a skill that can become a habit if you practice it enough.

Our brains love to create neural pathways. These neural pathways become like riverbeds. The more we follow the same “thought paths” the deeper the channel gets. Deeper channels flow faster and are more difficult to redirect. Turns out rivers flow a lot like thoughts do in our brains.

Studies have shown that each of us has a happiness set point. Events happen that will move our happiness up or down, but that move is temporary. Our happiness tends to go right back to where it was before the great or terrible event.

We’ve all experienced this. We get that thing or accomplish that goal we’ve been chasing, and we feel great…for a little while. Then the newness wears off and we are back to taking the incredible blessings we have for granted.

The same thing happens in our brains when things go terribly wrong. One famous study found that lottery winners and people who suffered accidents that left them paralyzed turned out similarly happy later in life.

This is shocking stuff. It turns out the quality of our life is not primarily based on what happens to us but by how we think about what happens to us.

Our happiness set points can be changed and the primary way we change ours is by being thankful for what we have.

There is always something to be grateful for, we just have to look for it. And like pushups or anything else in life, the more we do it the better we get at it.

So, get up tomorrow morning and do some gratitude pushups. If you keep doing them, you will be happier (and probably more successful). Know that I’ll be working hard to do mine too!

I’ll leave you with a little more wisdom on gratitude.

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” Zig Ziglar

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” – Oprah Winfrey

“…when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:2-4

If you’d like some great resources to help you on your journey you can find them on our resources page at www.valuesdrivenresults.com or call me at 229.244.1559.

Curt Fowler is President of Fowler & Company and Director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey. He is dedicated to helping leaders create and achieve a compelling vision for their organizations.

Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and business advisor. He has an MBA in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA, and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and four children.